SEVENDUST - New Interview With Guitarist John Connolly Available
October 31, 2010, 14 years ago
SEVENDUST guitarist John Connolly is featured in a new interview with GuitarInternational.com. An excerpt is available below.
Q: I understand that all band members contribute to the lyrics on your CDs. That pretty unique these days, how does that work for you guys?
John: "We’ve always done it that way since the demo days before the first record. It wasn’t like we woke up one day and said everyone’s going to take write a song. If there was hole in the song someone would take a crack at it. If someone doesn’t take a crack at it, it’s usually a good indication that it’s not a good song [Laughing]. It’s pretty typical that we go into the studio and have four different choruses to a song. There are a lot of chefs in the kitchen and for some bands it doesn’t work but for us it does. We can move pretty efficiently when everyone is helping."
Q: Do ever get into arguments about whose lyrics get used and who makes the final decision on what gets used?
John: "This time around we used Johnny K as the mediator. The fights happen but they’re flipped around the other way, we’re usually fighting for the other guy’s ideas. Many times you write something and listen to it countless times so when you hear someone’s fresh take on it, you go that’s 'bad ass.' You can hear it objectively at that point. What serves the song the best is what we want to use. Sometime we take one person’s complete idea and other times marry a bunch of ideas together. We’re all pretty easy going, and we all make sure we don’t deviate from the original idea. It can be difficult at times when you really have two good ideas and have to pick one."
Q: Do you actually go as far as recording multiple versions?
John: "Yeah we actually record all the versions. We use ProTools and with that you can write and record hundreds of different versions to figure out which one is right. It can be difficult to make the right decision when you have so many options and melody lines on the table."
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